The title and cover of this book caught my attention and I thought it sounded a bit different. Set in lockdown, five women in abusive relationships end up forming an unlikely lockdown murder club as they’ve all murdered their husbands.

Sadly, the rates of femicide rose during lockdown and this book was thought provoking, making you think about what could go on behind closed doors.

“But what happens when there’s no worse for it to get? What will you do when there’s nothing left to lose?”

Despite the subject matter, the book blends the serious issue of domestic abuse with dark humour, making it very readable. The characters are good and I really warmed to Sally in particular. Even though most of the women have been controlled and made to feel worthless by their husbands, they find support and strength in each other.

As the author mentions at the end, it’s not meant to be a credible book, although it’s clearly well researched and the author is aware of the rise in domestic abuse cases during lockdown in particular.

I was surprised at how readable the book is, but would have liked to find out a little bit more about what happened with Sally and Janey’s friendship, it’s mentioned that they fell out but not clear why.

Overall, I would recommend it. 3.5 stars rounded to 3. Thanks to Penguin UK, Viking UK and NetGalley for my copy.

Sally didn’t mean to crush her husband’s head with a skillet, but she’s so much happier now that she has. And she isn’t the only woman in town being pushed to breaking point by her husband during Lockdown. Coincidence brings four strangers together, but can they figure out how to get away with what they’ve done?

First things first, this isn’t just a cute, cozy thriller about women murdering their husbands and getting away with it. All of the women in this book are trapped in abusive marriages, which have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 Lockdown. The novel is padded out with humour and female friendship, but the overarching theme is domestic abuse. It does get lighter after the husbands have all been offed, but it is a little bit intense at the beginning and any readers triggered by domestic abuse should be aware before picking up this book.

However, I do think that the heavier topic helps to make this book more engaging than your average cozy thriller. Real thought has gone into the ins and outs of the plot and, while I didn’t particularly enjoy the lockdown setting, it really worked for the story.

I thoroughly enjoyed all of the female characters in this book, especially Sally, whose blasé attitude towards having murdered her husband is borderline psychopathic, and Edwina, who is excellent. Obviously, the men are all terrible but luckily they aren’t in it for long.

Thank you SO much to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

I absolutely loved this!! Such great characters and a great storyline.

My full review is to follow in a few days.....

I really enjoyed this book, even though the underlying premise is truly awful. Through dark humour, Alexia manages to tackle the very serious and complex issues of women being abused by their husbands and partners, fathers and male relatives. That she has been able to raise the profile of this horrific situation through her book is a testament to her. She writes about her reasons for writing this book at the beginning and end of the story and both are absolute must reads to contextualise the book.
We follow four women during lockdown as they try to deal with the most awful and challenging situations: how to bury their husbands and get away with for the sake of their children. The sheer strength of character they possess, the friendships that blossom, the true power of their determination to survive and protect their children is incredible. I found myself drawn to each and every one of them. And Edwina, the busybody neighbour, well she is an absolute gem!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Penguin General UK for a copy in exchange for a review.

A fast paced drama with a harrowing and serious subject at the heart of it .
At times I found it a difficult read interspersed with humour it made a dark and at times a funny read .
I enjoyed the camaraderie and relationships between the women .
This book highlights the violence perpetrated against women and the different ways this happens and I think it does it well.
I didn’t find it a light read and I found the characters and their situations relatable .
A different read.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin General UK.

This book was genius. It was funny, well thought out and really made me think about domestic abuse. I loved the characters, especially Sally the protagonist, Leila, one of the other character’s gay teenage daughter and Edwina that stern neighbour who had made herself an unofficial lockdown monitor.

Although the book is about female power and an escape from domestic violence, it was good to see a note in the front of the book acknowledging that men can be the victim too and saying that it wasn’t trying to make light of their plight. It made me feel better about it. The book also made it very clear that the women in this book were all most definitely the victims and acting in self-defense.

It was also really interesting to revisit lockdown while reading this book. It feels like such a long time ago now and looking back on it comes with the shock of remembering how bad it was (how were we really only allowed out to exercise once a day???). But it felt good and cathartic to revisit this distressing time. It certainly added to the story, creating new problems and hurdles for the characters to get over.

All in all, I strongly recommend this book. It’s a absurd comedy with a very real heart and a strong message of female survival.

A great and heartbreaking read
This was well written and very readable. The characters were interesting, fully developed and engaging. The plot was also interesting and while not at all plausible, difficult to put down.
Everything in this novel rests on an implausible premis and since the author tells you this both in the foreword and the afterword, I couldn’t complain about it but what really drives this novel is outrage and caring about women who suffer domestic abuse behind closed doors. This is described from several different points of view and absolutely exposes some of the horror and misery of suffering domestic abuse. It was really hard not to want to run out and shout about it from the rooftops so very well done for that. Important to note that it was not the number of women being abused at home that was implausible - I was reminded of the first time I was told that a friend was regularly beaten by her husband and how, as time went by I realised that more people than I’d ever imagined were suffering in this horribly secret way.
There were moments of tragic farce but really, I couldn’t find this funny at all, however, it was a powerful and heartbreaking read and I recommend it to anyone who doubts that this is a problem. And as well, it’s highly readable and entertaining. I recommend it.

Set against the backdrop of unprecedented times, the story follows four women who find themselves in a unique predicament: dealing with deceased husbands and the challenge that come with it.

Casale's writing effortlessly blends dry humor with poignant moments, making for an enjoyable and thought-provoking read. The characters are brilliantly drawn, each with their own struggles and vulnerabilities, yet united by their resilience and determination to overcome their circumstances. As the plot unfolds, readers are drawn into a world where laughter and tears intermingle, and where female solidarity shines through even in the darkest of times.
Overall, "The Best Way to Bury Your Husband" is a must-read for anyone looking for a compelling story that will stay with them long after the final page. I highly recommend it to readers who appreciate dark humor, well-developed characters, and thought-provoking themes. Thank you to Penguin and Netgalley for providing me with the opportunity to read this gem of a book.

I want to start off saying Casale is a tremendous author; her writing keeps you engrossed and wanting more.

I automatically loved Sally, I just wanted everything to be okay for her. This is a darkly funny book with a heavy subject matter but it's so well done you forget about it.

We are slowly introduced to Ruby, Samira and her daughter's Leila and Maryam, and Janey and her daughter Ava and watch as their bonds of friendship grow through their unconventional meetings. Each lady is witty and clever and you watch as they slowly overcome years of being pushed down. Casale takes her inspiration for this novel from real life encounters she had with DV victims throughout the lockdown and she talks about this further in her author's note in the beginning and end of the book which is an important read.

It was strange being back to the beginning of lockdown when we could only go out for an hour at a time and the shelves were bare at the supermarkets but again Casale does this well, drawing from own experiences to help us relate.

I highly recommend this one

4.5⭐️

I loved this! It covers such an awful subject yet does so in a lighthearted and funny way. I enjoyed how it doesn’t condone or glorify female violence and although like the author says in the notes at the end, it’s a highly unlikely scenario but it’s also managed to feel believable? Although the ending was predictable I really enjoyed it.

I was initially excited about this book & at the start, this did entertain me. I feel as though it fell flat during the middle & didn’t really pick back up again. I found the book to be quite repetitive and towards the end I was skim reading & missing out paragraphs.

The premise of the book is very good, the execution wasn’t as good. Too repetitive & not a lot going on.

I'm a bit conflicted with this story. The author herself admits that the likelihood that, in the space of a few days, four women come across each other in the same circumstances that they join together not just to support each other in the darkest of times, but take it that bit further does take the edge off it a wee bit. I found the planning quite entertaining and it's an easy read. I wouldn't say there's much humour in the book. I'm not sure how much the exaggeration of the situation actually does to hammer home the appalling stats regarding violence perpetrated against women.

This book was definitely easy to read and very fast paced, the short chapters really meant the story moved along and kept me interested. That being said this one just felt a little done before for me, and I felt myself guessing what would happen next and just didn’t really gel with the story in the way I might have liked.

Overall this made for easy reading and I think fans of this genre etc will enjoy this one a lot. For me I think I would have just liked it to have more individuality

It sounds weird to say I thoroughly enjoyed a book which had such a harrowing subject matter, but I really did.

The Best Way to Bury Your Husband is set in the UK during the covid lockdown where people were only allowed to leave their houses once a day. A group of women somewhat serendipitously come together after dark after one way or another each of them ending up killing their husband.

The group decide to help eachother out and plot out a plan to get rid of the bodies and each get away with it.

This book is a great mix of black comedy and genuine touching moments, it features domestic abuse as one of its main plot lines and it’s done so well and realistically I thought that was great, as a lot of books get that wrong.

The very core of the book however is female friendship and how you’ll do anything for those you love, and I found it uplifting and hopeful by the end. A great read.

As the author says herself at the beginning of this story, this is a black comedy dealing with very real issues of domestic violence, only exacerbated my the covid-19 lockdown period of 2020. While at first I was a little put off by the shock factor of the violence portrayed at the start of the novel, I quickly came to realise that once you picked up on the razor sharp wit behind it - it was very cleverly done.

Plotwise, this was the epitome of I support women's rights but most of all I support women's wrongs". I loved the way this book looked at female companionship and intergenerational friendships and it also touched on how abuse can affect the relationships people have with their own families.

Although the book remains lighthearted and earnest in tone throughout, there is a serious note running through that cannot be ignored and I feel that I've gained a new perspective into the kinds of dangerous relationships that exist across the UK (and beyond of course!)

I don't think this is a genre or style of book I'll return to, but it was a well paced, enjoyable story nonetheless.

Having been in an abusive marriage for 10 years, I found the characters very relatable. From the image on the front I was expecting something a bit more lighthearted but this didn't stop my enjoyment of the book, there were a great mix between the humour and the seriousness of the topic.

It was a really enjoyable book, with great writing and character development. I'm looking forward to reading more by Alexia.

While the back history of the women in this story was an age old story of domestic abuse, it turned out to be a fun, heartwarming tale of new friends and teamwork. I enjoyed this story.

I was really looking forward to reading this but it wasn't quite as light hearted as I expected.

Set in lockdown where 4 women all suffer with domestic violence.

While it is written quite light heartedly it has a dark and not nice subject.

A good read

Set during lockdown, four women who all have to deal with domestic violence. Two big topics but this book was such an enjoyable read. The humour was dry and dark and it made me smile and even laugh out loud at times. The characters were all so well drawn and I felt for all of them and was cheering them on at the end. I’d love to see this as a film, as like the book it would be marvellous. Thank you to Penguin and Netgalley for letting me read this, I would happily recommend it.

I was expecting to love this but unfortunately it fell a bit flat for me perhaps I went in with very high expectations?

I loved using humour to approach this very unfortunate topic and loved the premise of the book however I felt that towards the middle of the book the pacing was slightly off and at the end eventually picked up leading me to believe that this book could definitely have been shorter and that would've made for a much more pleasant reading experience. Additionally, I didn't enjoy the lack of structure in the chapters, I wish each chapter at the beginning would've followed one story and the next a different story rather than a few consecutive chapters about character A and the next one about character B only to jump back character A's story in the following chapter.

Overall an enjoyable read but didn't dazzle me.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC.